Ten Things I Love About You
by ColieMacKenzie
Summary: She gives him peace. He makes her happy. The tapestry of their love, framed within one hundred words. Complete.


**Ten Things I Love About You**

* * *

.

He likes to grip her hip.

His head between her thighs, lips and tongue swirling a heated dance across her skin, he curves his palm over the jut of her hipbone, tethering her body to him. She surges up, keens out throaty sounds, helplessly writhes within the scorching fire of his touch but his fingers are resolute against the sensitive concave of her waist.

Ardent, never bruising. Holding her body captive while he frees her soul.

She can't escape, can barely move under his indomitable, ruthless pursuit of her pleasure, the warm cradle of his hand.

She loves this.

Him.

* * *

.

She gives him peace.

His brain is loud sometimes, overwhelming, a veritable smorgasbord of ideas, scenes, images, the incessant chatter of characters begging for their story to be told.

He paces. Restless, impatient with it. Drowning in thoughts until her fingers entwine with his, until she wordlessly folds him into her arms.

Sleep-shirt rumpled, still warm on her as he falls into the soothing comfort of her embrace. The buzzing stops, instead he senses. Her sleepy scent, the warmth of her body; how she cares, understands, loves.

Entwined they watch the morning sun sprawl light across the city they love.

* * *

.

He makes her happy.

She's always been fun-loving. Adventurous, playful. But the encumbrance of her life had weighted heavy. The gravity of her choices, the solemnity of her past. Heart walled off, dreams dashed, she could but stand by, feel her hopes leeching from her, a gradual, inescapable drain.

She had forgotten what happy felt like.

He grins wolfishly, eyebrow raised in challenge and she giggles, dashes around the couch. He fakes her out, pounces, the splat of whipped cream cold as he smashes it onto her cheek. She squeals delightedly.

His mouth captures her laugh. She gives it.

Happily.

* * *

.

Her mouth is devastating.

Savage. Knowing. The searing draw of her lips, the wet slide of her tongue across his collarbone and his blood sings, body set aflame.

She is precise, measured in her exploration. Entranced with him, each time as if it were the first.

Her teeth nip the inside of his elbow, the circle of his wrist where the skin is tender, and ruthless longing pools low in his abdomen. She hums, her hot breath skittering across his navel before she pulsates a trail of kisses down the vertical hairline. Lower. Lower.

He comes undone.

She remakes him.

* * *

.

She likes to watch him sleep.

When darkness falls around them, the quiet of the night blanketing her thoughts. He lies sprawled across her chest, his breaths calm and deep. Hot as they drift across the naked mound of her breast.

The curl of his eyelashes throws shadows over the strong rim of his cheekbones. He looks younger somehow. Peaceful. The smooth strands of his hair tickle her fingers when she swirls them over his scalp and he stirs, adjusts his cheek.

He sinks into her, sleep-heavy and warm, and she welcomes it.

The weight of his comfort. His love.

* * *

.

Kate Beckett is ticklish.

He discovers this early on, in that one precious moment when he nudges his face into the arc of her neck. Just to breathe her in. Still so shocked, stunned, overwhelmed that she has finally found her way to him. He nuzzles her smooth skin, lips tasting her flavor, his breath skittering over the graceful slope of her neck.

She squirms, her muscles twitching, trapping him in place as a delightful peal of giggles falls from her lips.

He treasures the discovery. Hones it like a finely polished instrument.

Uses it in just the right moments.

* * *

.

His fingers are magic.

He wields them like weapons, skillfully brands her skin with the full force of his talent, the expertise he's unerringly garnered from the first moment he had peeled the rain-soaked shirt off her skin.

Barely there caresses skirt along the curvature of her ribcage, swirl over the hills and valleys of her waist, her stomach. The peaks of her hips, the slope of her navel. Where her skin is thin, so very sensitive to every whispered touch.

She writhes, hisses with the zealous bursts of sensation, a trail of goose bumps following his path.

More. More.

* * *

.

She is a work of art.

Silhouetted against the windowpane, her shape falls to the floor in long graceful lines, soft perfect curves. Captivating and soothing both, like vibrant waves on a backlit canvas.

He steps behind her, encircles her waist with his arms. She sinks back, her weight absorbed by the network of his muscles and bones welcoming her. The totality of her trust encapsulated within the instinctive draw of her body into his.

She slides her hand over his, engulfing him with the warmth and comfort of her. He wells with it, aching, all-consuming.

How she completes him.

* * *

.

She cherishes his body.

The width of his chest, broad and thick. Safe. She splays her fingertips over the strum of his ribs, his heartbeat fervent, powerful throbs against her palm.

The bulge of his biceps as he holds himself above her, eyes burning darkly into hers and she wraps her fingers over his arm, feels the muscles bunching, jumping with the strain.

The heavy heat of him, the ruthless surge of arousal that pools inside of her as she welcomes him within the cradle of her thighs, eyes wide, watching.

The weight of him on her.

Inside of her.

* * *

.

She kisses like it is the first time and the last time.

Every time.

Her mouth so eager, open. Welcoming the swirl of his tongue with unabashed pleasure. Her lips skate, slide, linger; a sizzling ballet across the backdrop of his skin. She gives with abandon and he soaks up her flavors, her passion. Captures the staccato vowels that burst from her throat.

Sometimes it's fast, an almost ferocious pursuit, a delirious fire that scorches, leaves him throbbing with need. Others it's slow, exploration or comfort or connection, so measured and deliberate that he forgets the world.

Always it's love.


End file.
